Disney confirms third standalone Star Wars movie for 2020

We don't know yet if C-3PO and R2-D2 will be in the third standalone movie, but it's not like they have a human life span to contend with.

Lucasfilm

The Force will be with us for a long time to come. On Thursday, Disney confirmed a third Star Wars film in the standalone series that will begin this December with "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

It's set for 2020, so if you're counting, that means those who were born on the same 1977 day as "Star Wars" hit theaters will be 43 when this movie comes out. Since the series' popularity seems to just keep going, someday those same people will be able to take their great-great grandkids to watch a galaxy far, far away unfold on the big screen. (Although by then will we even see movies in theaters? They'll probably just beam them directly to our eyelids.)

Related stories

Deadline reports that Disney CEO Bob Iger said he's just heard the pitch from the writer working on 2019's "Star Wars Episode IX," and revealed that a writer has been hired for the previously unannounced 2020 film.

So mark your calendars, you've got "Rogue One" this December, Episode VIII in December of 2017, a as-yet-untitled young Han Solo film in 2018, then Episode IX in 2019, and now this movie in 2020. The films are alternating release years between the remaining two of the original series and the three standalone movies.

Iger told Deadline he doesn't expect "Rogue One" to do as well as "The Force Awakens," but he did say that "interest is high." We'll go out on a limb and call that perhaps the biggest understatement since Luke described Ben Kenobi as "a strange old hermit."